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Washington School Bans Halo 2 Tournament

Posted by Zonk on from the not-terribly-surprising dept.

Pluvius writes "A couple of high-school students in the Washington city of Puyallup wanted to raise money for the tsunami disaster in South Asia, and figured that the best way to do so was to hold a tournament using Bungie's hit XBox title Halo 2. Their school district disagreed, citing an anti-violence policy. Even though all of the parents of the children who would've taken part in the tournament signed waivers acknowledging the game's violence, Puyallup School District felt that due to school shootings across the country, 'anything we do that even looks like we're endorsing violence is not appropriate.'"

2 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. A Call from the ACLU May Fix This by Doug+Dante · · Score: 4, Interesting
    While getting a bad rap for taking on the boy scouts, the ACLU is probably the most useful defender of students' rights in America (defending students rights to wear black arm bands, publish independent student papers, etc).

    IIRC, it's their legal position that student organizations all have an equal right to school facilities (yup even the Boy Scouts - just no 'special rights').

    You may want to contact them via their students' rights web site at ACLU student rights

    --
    The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
  2. The school's right. by phouka · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm guessing that a high percentage of the folks here condemning the school don't own homes.

    Why? Because homeowners go through this sort of painful deliberation regularly.

    I live in a cul-de-sac and my yard happens to be the recipient of all the snow for the entire street. For a kid, it presents awesome potential for king-of-the-hill, snowball fights, digging tunnels, etc. It's truly a massive amount of snow.

    But can I really let the neighborhood kids play in it? No way. The second one of them got hurt, it's MY homeowner's policy on the line. It's MY insurance that's going to not get renewed, forcing me to double my cost for homeowner's insurance when I have to resort to the state 'pool'. In other words, if I want to be a nice guy I have to accept an unreasonable risk.

    The school is in the same position. You can bet that administrator and the school officials really thought what the kids were doing was cool. You can also bet that they sat back and said: "When we get sued, it's going to require resources in time and money that we *really* can't afford, given ever-tightening school budges."

    So they came to the only reasonable conclusion.

    To all these folks screaming about the state of our country, I pose this question: Are you really, honestly ready to stand up and say "I won't sue my neighbor, even if he's technically culpable"? Because until you are, people are going to be more concerned about protecting themselves than in freeing up their resources to share.